Eternal X: Reunions
by DreamWeaver529
Summary: First in series. Set after the FIRST movie. Days after leaving the school, Logan is rescued by a group that has ties to Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and his own forgotten past.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:**  
  
I do not own the characters of the X-Men: The Movie, or the universe they live in. I have only borrowed them for a short time. They belong to the Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc. All original characters and situations are the property of the author.  
  
No harm was intended, nor profit made from this story. So please don't sue me.  
  
**Author's Note:**  
  
This story is totally based on the movie. Please, leave all preconceptions based on the comic books and or the cartoons at the door.  
  
So, read and review.  
  
****************************************************************************  
  
The cold wind whipped at Logan's face. The motorbike sped down the dark road. The Professor hadn't been kidding when he said that there wasn't much left at the base. There wasn't even much of a base left. Logan had wandered around it most of the day, but nothing about it had seemed familiar. And who ever had been sent to clean it up had done a good job; nothing had been left behind. Not that Logan had really thought he would find anything. Fifteen years was a long time for incriminating information to just sit around. He was no closer to finding out who he was than when he had found Rogue in the back of his truck.  
  
Just the thought of that little imp put a smile on Logan's face. The truth was that his life had started to look up after he had found her, not that he would admit that to anyone. For the first time in a long time he had something to think about besides his missing past, and it felt good.  
  
The eerie red light of emergency flashers broke Logan's train of thought. An SUV sat off on the right shoulder of the road, the hood propped up. Slowing down, Logan pulled close to the yellow line. The only person Logan could see was standing at the front of the SUV waving his arms above his head. Logan groaned at his own stupidity as he pulled the bike to a stop in front of the car. _Spent a couple of days with some goody-two-shoes, and you go soft._  
  
Getting off the bike, he slipped the keys into his pocket. "What seems to be the problem?"  
  
"I was driving along and about five minutes ago it just stalled and wouldn't start back up," the man said, stepping up to meet Logan, "I'm glad you came along so fast. I was worried that I might be here awhile."  
  
Logan leaned into the engine compartment, as he waited for his eyesight to adjust to the lack of light. Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly. Raising an eyebrow, he took another sniff at the air. Something was wrong. It smelled like the engine was cold, as if it hadn't been turned over for at least an hour.  
  
Logan pulled back just in time to miss catching the tire-iron in the back of the head. He took a few more steps back, "What the…?"  
  
Keeping his arms loose at his sides, Logan ducked the man's wide swings. Two more men appeared out of the darkness, surrounding him.  
  
Logan waited until the guy to his left was with in reach before exploding into action. Bringing out his claws, he pulled his hand into a back swing.  
  
Before he could connect with the guys gut, his opponent grabbed Logan's arm, pushing it down and behind Logan's back. As the man began to push his arm up, Logan spun around, lashing out with his claws. The man deflected the blow by slamming his palm onto the flat of Logan's claw, pushing the swing high.  
  
The strong smell of ozone filled Logan's lungs. He raised an eyebrow before he felt the fire burn its way down his arm. He opened his mouth but nothing came out as his skeleton became solid fire.  
  
He collapsed to the ground, his entire body screaming with pain.  
  
Taking a deep breath, he ordered his body to turn over, to push himself up onto his hands and knees. It didn't respond.  
  
Numbness began to eat at his limbs. Even as he fought to regain sensation a gray mist began to haze his vision.  
  
Swearing to himself, Logan slipped into unconsciousness.  
  
  
  
"Any luck, Kat?" Maranda asked, leaning against the frame of the office door. Kat sat at her desk, her eyes closed, her fingers resting on the keys.  
  
"Some," Kat replied, not bothering to open her eyes. "Shouldn't be much longer."  
  
Maranda stood up and walked into the room. Taking a seat at her own desk, Maranda swiveled to watch her friend. She absently rubbed her hand up and down her arm as she watched Kat's silent meditation.  
  
Waves of energy washed over Maranda, making her hair stand on end. Maranda could see Kat's eyes flash back and forth behind her closed eyelids. Kat had tried in the past to explain why she did that, but it's almost impossible to describe to someone that you are looking at things that aren't there, visual images crated by your subconscious so that your conscious could handle it. Maranda understood it better than most, her own gift doing basically the same thing, but she still could not understand how Kat's mind interpreted the electrical impulses of the computer. It was so different from the way her own mind showed her a magnified view of the organic material she was manipulating.  
  
"Ah ha." Kat's eye snapped open. Maranda could see Kat's elongated pupils, a side effect of the use of her power, perfect cats eyes. Kat blinked rapidly and her eyes quickly returned to normal. "I knew I recognized that bike!"  
  
Surprised at her sudden outburst, Maranda came around Kat's desk. As she leaned over her friend's shoulder the blank screen flickered to life. On the screen was the DMV's records for the motorcycle they had found on the side of the road. The owner of the bike had been found by two of Maranda's friends, being loaded into the back of an SUV by three men. The man now lay, still unconscious, in Maranda's med-lab. Or they thought he was the owner, the keys had been in his pocket. But according to the New York Department of Motor Vehicles the motorbike was registered to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters, in particular Scott Summers.  
  
"Charles," Maranda whispered.  
  
  
  
_Bezz…bezz…bezz…_ Charles looked up from his paper work. He sighed, remembering that his secretary was out sick for the day, leaving him to answer the phones. He hated phones. When he met with someone face to face, even when he did not actively scan them, he had a good idea about what they wanted. With the phone he didn't get that.  
  
He clicked the blinking icon on the bottom corner of his computer screen. He swore to himself when, at the last instant, the blinking phone turned into a face. An audio/visual transmission.  
  
He pulled on a smile as the computer paused for a moment as it opened the necessary programs. The smile quickly became genuine as he recognized the face that filled the screen.  
  
"Maranda, it's so good to hear from you," he said, linking his hands in his lap.   
  
"It's good to see you, Charles," Maranda replied, her own smile bright. Maranda's dark brown hair fell around her face, her deep brown eyes twinkling. "How've you been?"  
  
"I haven't been bored," Charles chuckled, "and you?"  
  
"I'm glad you asked," she replied, her tone becoming serious.  
  
"What's wrong?" Charles leaned forward in his chair.  
  
"We've found a man being loaded into the back of an SUV. He has no ID and had the keys to a motorcycle in his pocket. We found the bike at the scene, and when we checked the registration, it's licensed to your school."  
  
"Logan," Charles whispered, leaning against the back of his chair.  
  
"You know him?" Maranda asked with a raised eyebrow.  
  
"Yes," and when she gave him an even more inquisitive look, he continued, "He was at the school a month ago. How is he?"  
  
"Well, I've stabilized him-" Maranda said before Charles interrupted.  
  
"Stabilized?" Charles again leaned forward in his chair, this time bracing his hands on the table in front of him.  
  
"Yes," Maranda replied, obviously taken aback. "From what I can tell he got hit with a large electric shock. I've repaired most of the damage, and he's resting comfortably."  
  
"When did this happen?"  
  
"Well, the boys found him at around five this morning, and by the look of things he had just been attacked."  
  
Charles glanced at the clock in the corner of the screen before muttering to himself, "Five and a half hours ago."  
  
"Actually it was three and a half," Charles's eyes refocused on the screen. Her smile was back as she corrected him, "The time difference."  
  
"Oh, yes," Charles said, then straightened in his chair, forcibly removing his fingers from where they gripped the tabletop. "I'll be there immediately."  
  
"You're coming here?" she looked surprised.  
  
"Am I not welcome at your facility?" he couldn't help but smile.  
  
"No, of course, you're always welcome here, but don't you have a school to run?" She had a point.  
  
"I'll leave Jean and Ororo, in charge, and have Scott fly me out."  
  
"Well, you better come in the helicopter, because there is nowhere to land the jet."  
  
He stared at the screen for a moment, then shook his head.  
  
"Oh, yes," he muttered not really hearing her. Shaking his head he refocused on the screen. "And he hasn't woken up yet?"  
  
"Not the last time I looked," her eyebrow arched, "He did sustain major neurological damage-"  
  
"His mutation is accelerated healing, "Charles interrupted.  
  
"So," Maranda continued, "he'll be on his feet a lot quicker."  
  
Charles took a deep breath, and tamped down the apprehension growing inside of him. "When he wakes up in an unfamiliar location he has a tendency of being…hostile."  
  
"I don't want to sedate him," Maranda said, nibbling at her bottom lip, "his condition is too serious."  
  
"It wouldn't do any good," Charles added, "his system metabolizes drugs too quickly, and to keep him stabilized-"  
  
"-and not kill him would be tricky," Maranda finished.  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"So, what's the plan?" Maranda asked.  
  
"Logan knows me, trusts me," Charles said, "Hopefully I'll get there before he wakes up."  
  
"And if you don't?" Maranda asked, both of her brows arched.  
  
"Stay out of his way." 


	2. Chapter 2

LeAnna sat cross-legged on a metal table in the infirmary, an e-book reader open in front of her. Larger than the average electronic organizer, the large color screen lit up her face. She hummed along with the instrumental sax playing from the MP3 player at her side.  
  
Syrus, the large malamute laying on the floor at her feet, lifted his head.  
  
"Hello, Gambit," she said, not bothering to look up from her reading.  
  
"Your awareness of your surroundings never fails to astound me, _cher, _" the Cajon said, leaning on the door frame, "are you sure you are not a telepath?"  
  
LeAnna snorted, "Not even. I can smell your aftershave a mile away."  
  
"Do you like it, _mon petit_?"  
  
She shot a glare at him over her e-book before pretending to return to her reading. Just because he topped six-foot-three, didn't make her five-foot six-inch frame small. And she definitely wasn't his. At 20, he couldn't exactly be called an orphan, but his childhood on the streets of New Orleans had left him short of boyfriend material. Or so she kept telling herself.  
  
"It's great," she said airily, "for Wal-Mart."  
  
"You wound me," he said, putting his hands over his heart in mock pain. LeAnna rolled her eyes and went back to her reading.  
  
Letting his hands fall, he walked up to her. Resting his hip on the edge of the table beside her, he reached up and tucked a length of auburn hair behind her ear with the middle two fingers of his hand. Leanna stiffened but didn't flinch. She saw him look down at his hand out of the corner of her eye, mostly covered in a thin glove with the index, thumb and pinkie cut off, with a mixture of self-loathing and resentment.  
  
Before she could say anything to make him feel better, he turned away from her to half sit on the table.  
  
"How is he?" he asked, staring at the man on the med-bed in front of them. Laying on his back, with an ultra light blanket from his neck down, he looked extremely pale, and vaguely familiar.  
  
"Still unconscious," LeAnna replied. "Maranda fixed him up as best she could, but that electric shock ran through his entire body along his metal skeleton. Fried him up pretty good."  
  
"There you are, mate," the voice from the doorway said. LeAnna looked up to see Peter leaning his head into the room. The Aussie gestured to Gambit, "Come on, we got work to do."  
  
Gambit sighed and pushed himself away from the table. "Till later, _cher_."  
  
LeAnna watched as Gambit walked around Peter and down the hall. Peter gave her a wink before pushing himself off the door jam to follow Gambit. LeAnna shook her head and returned to her book.  
  
The moan was just loud enough to be heard over her music.  
  
Dumping her e-book on the table, she jumped to the floor. Hitting the ground at a run, she was at his side in three long strides.  
  
Leaning over him, she pulled her hair over her shoulder and out of her way. His eyes blinked half open.  
  
"You're OK," she said gently, "You're at the Mountain Side Clinic. We found you on the side of the road. You're going to be fine."  
  
He groaned, trying to say something. She leaned closer, her hand resting on his shoulder.  
  
He swallowed and wet his lips. "Red…"  
  
Confused, she turned her eyes back to his face, her eyebrows pulling together, but he had already slipped back into unconsciousness.  
  
Still trying to figure out what he meant, she took a step back, her eyes still on him.  
  
The door in front of her slammed into the wall, making LeAnna jump.  
  
Maranda hurried into the room, her blond hair flying behind her. "Has he regained consciousness?"  
  
"Yeah, for just a sec," LeAnna said, "he just slipped out again."  
  
"Did he try to hurt you?"  
  
LeAnna's eyebrows knit closer together; this wasn't like Maranda, "Why would he try to hurt me?"  
  
Maranda visibly relaxed, "I just got off the phone with Charles-"  
  
"He knows Uncle Charles?" LeAnna asked, looking down at him. It looked like he hadn't shaved in a week, definitely not the type of person her Uncle normally hung around with.  
  
Maranda made an affirmative sound, "And apparently he can be rather violent when he wakes up in a strange place."  
  
"Well, considering his last memory is probably being electrocuted, would you blame him?" LeAnna said, looking back up at Maranda.  
  
"True," Maranda said as she studied his vital signs. "He's resting comfortably now. I'll stay with him until Charles gets here."  
  
"He's coming here?" LeAnna brightened; she hadn't seen him in months, "When?"  
  
"Soon," Maranda said, a small smile playing at her lips. "Soon."  
  
  
  
Alex turned the key and pulled it from the ignition, listening to the engine tick down. Crossing her arms over the wheel, she rested her head on them, ignoring the belt cutting into her shoulder.  
  
She sat there for a moment, letting herself relax. It was just after six-thirty; she'd made good time. Maranda would be serving dinner in about an hour, just enough time to have a nice long bath and get changed. With luck, she'd be in bed by ten.  
  
She straightened up and threw open the door, swearing to herself for the hundredth time that this would be her last ten day run as she undid the seatbelt. She climbed down from the cab and trudged around in the snow to give the rig the once over before heading for the house. Long-hall trucking may make big money, but the hours sucked.  
  
Trisha was waiting for her just inside the heated sunroom. She sat in a straight-backed chair, her suit jacket folded neatly over the arm of the chair beside her. She stood as Alex came up the steps.  
  
"Been waiting long?" Alex asked out of politeness, already knowing the answer. Trisha didn't disappoint her.  
  
"No," she said, making no move to pick up her jacket. Something was wrong. As warm as the sunroom was, it wasn't very comfortable in the middle of winter. She wanted to talk, alone. _Great_.  
  
Alex liked Trisha, had since she had found her sitting on the step of her rig six years earlier. In a real way, it had been Trisha who had found her. Trisha had said that she had seen Alex save her life and decided that the best way to stay alive was to stick to Alex's side until she did. Alex still wasn't sure she understood this logic, especially since it was her own presence that had eventually put Trisha in the position of needing to be saved. Trisha said that she survived the pre-cog, so why should she have wanted to risk changing it. Messing with temporal dynamics always gave Alex a headache.  
  
Alex knocked the snow off her boots, waiting for the younger woman to start. At twenty-six, Trisha was one of their little groups most accomplished members. Having received her accounting designation only two years earlier, she was already a partner in a CGA firm. It never failed to amaze Alex how far she had come, especially at times like these, when she stood there, calm and collected, in her business skirt and blouse, waiting.  
  
"Spill, Trish," Alex said, giving up waiting, the thought of a bath was just too tempting.  
  
"The boys interrupted a kidnapping this morning."  
  
Alex stopped her stomping. "Are they all right?"  
  
Trisha nodded, "Peter and Gambit got away without even a scratch. The kidnapers escaped. Their victim is still unconscious."  
  
Alex swore.  
  
"Charles is on the way-" Trisha said.  
  
"Charles?" Alex asked, "Why?"  
  
"Apparently he knows the victim."  
  
"Great," Alex said, kicking the leg of a chair. "One of his students."  
  
"I don't think so," Trisha said, a smile touching her lips for the first time. "He's a little old for that. Anyway, Charles should be here…"  
  
Trisha paused and Alex heard the thump of the helicopter blades. "...now."  
  
"I'll grab a quick shower and be down in ten."  
  
_So much for a bath_.  
  
  
  
Alex got to the bottom of the stairs just as Maranda greeted Charles at the door.  
  
"Hello, Charles. I was wondering when you would get here."  
  
Charles smiled, "I couldn't get away as quickly as I would have liked. Is he awake?"  
  
"No." Maranda said. "He regained consciousness for a few moments but is sleeping peacefully now."  
  
"Did he try to hurt you?"  
  
Maranda shook her head. "I was on the phone with you at the time, but no, he made no move to hurt anyone."  
  
At 58, Maranda was a beautiful woman, and totally taken with Charles. For a telepath, who was attracted to her too, he wasn't being very smart about the whole thing. Alex had approached them both. Maranda had said she was too stuck in her ways to change, and Charles just smiled and changed the subject. But then, love never did anyone any good anyway.  
  
Alex accepted the apathy in that statement and stepped out into the hall.  
  
  
  
Charles looked up at Maranda, hearing the muted echoes of her thoughts at the edge of his awareness. She was stressed. Worrying, not only about Logan, but everyone else as well. Trisha was overworking. Kat was spending more time in the computer then in the real world. Peter had taken Gambit, the newest edition to their little 'family' under his wing, and she was just waiting for him to be burned, figuratively of course, it was the only type of fire he couldn't control. LeAnna was withdrawing from people her age, especially the boys. And Alex, well Alex was trying to deal with, and fix, all of this, and she was working her self into the ground trying to keep the struggling clinic running.  
  
_And Maranda? _ he pushed gently.  
  
That got a wry grin. Maranda was trying to deal with the fact that no one came to her clinic because they didn't want to be labeled a mutant.  
  
_You could always come and work for me. _  
  
That got a light chuckle.  
  
"Am I interrupting something?"  
  
Charles turned towards the voice and for one heart stopping moment, he saw Elizabeth standing before him. Her red hair falling in waves about her shoulders. Her welcoming smile. Her warm green eyes. But as quickly as it had come, the vision faded, and his sister slipped back into his memories. "Hello, Alexandra."  
  
Her laugh echoed her mothers in his mind. "Your never going to call me Alex, are you Uncle?"  
  
He suddenly realized that he could not read her. He pushed gently, but still nothing. "You're blocking."  
  
"Even this old dog can learn new tricks," she said, her smile growing.  
  
"You had to say that in the face of your elders, didn't you?" Maranda said, feigning annoyance.  
  
"Yeah," Alexandra said, "the only two here."  
  
Alex leaned over and gave him a kiss on his cheek, "Is that better?"  
  
She lowered her defenses and welcomed him into her home.  
  
"Maranda," Kat's voice filled the hall, "he's awaking up."  
  
"Hello Katrina."  
  
"Hi, Uncle X, how ya been?"  
  
"Good, and yourself?"  
  
"Can't complain," Katrina paused, "You might want to get a move on. He might not be so polite this time."  
  
"After you," Alexandra said, stepping out of the way.  
  
  
  
Alex followed them down the hall, Charles's wheelchair keeping up with Maranda's brisk doctor walk. Alex trailed behind.  
  
Just outside the double doors to the clinic, she heard the sound of footfalls behind her. Turning, she saw Scott jogging up to her with a wide smile.  
  
"Hi, Alex. How are you?"  
  
"Can't complain, you?"  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the double door open, before Charles greeted their guest, "Hello, Logan."  
  
Alex froze, no longer hearing Scott, before turning slowly towards the clinic. Sitting on one of the beds, looking at her, was _him_.  
  
Hot fury worked its way up her throat, and she fought the desperate urge to throw up. Every cell in her body screamed to kill him. Kill him for what he had done to her. 


	3. Chapter 3

Charles stared at the place Alexandra had disappeared. Still in shock from the feelings he had felt wash from her. It was palpable, Charles could still taste it. It had been so intense that he couldn't pinpoint who it had been aimed at, but there was really only one possible target.  
  
Scott appeared in the doorway, rubbing his shoulder, _What was_ that _about? _  
  
Charles got a quick flash of Alexandra running into Scott and not even stopping to apologies.  
  
Since he didn't have an answer, he didn't try to give him one.  
  
Instead, he turned his attention to Logan. He sat on the med-bed, his arms resting in his lap, glaring at Scott. Scott's cocky grin wasn't helping.  
  
"Hello, Logan."  
  
Logan pulled his gaze from Scott. The look he gave Charles was a little less easy to read. But Charles knew he was confused, and not just by the attack.  
  
"What are you doing in this neck of the woods?"  
  
"Maranda called me-"  
  
"Maranda?"  
  
"This is Doctor Maranda Jones. She saved your life."  
  
  
  
Logan chuckled, giving the slim doctor the once over. Her gently smiling face didn't look old enough for the gray that peppered her hair. "Thanks for the help Doc, but I doubt you-"  
  
"You're right, you probably would have recovered from the massive, and probably sustained, shock that coursed through your entire skeleton, in time. But in the future, Mr. Logan, you should probably stay away from high voltage electricity."  
  
"I seem to be alright," he said, rolling his shoulders. She gave a light laugh, and Charles smiled, giving Logan the impression that he was missing something.  
  
"She's a healer, Mate," the large man who had been leaning on the wall by the door said. "A Mutant like the rest of us."  
  
Logan simply lifted an eyebrow.  
  
"Peter MacAllister." He stepped forward, extending his hand, "But you can call me Kindle."  
  
"Kindle?" Logan asked. The man's grip was strong and warm. He released Logan's hand and stepped back. He curled his fingers up and almost instantaneously flames consumed his hand. Fire licked his fingers to spiral up almost two feet, each of the five flames distinct. Just as fast as they appeared, the flames vanished.  
  
Kindle tossed something at him with his other hand. The soft bundle hit Logan in the chest, his arms instinctively closing around it. He looked down at the bundle then up at Kindle.  
  
"I thought you might want some clothes," he said, and smiled, "It's a bit chilly to be sitting around in your boxers."  
  
Logan laughed, realizing he was right. Pulling the bundle apart, he got of the bed and began to pull on the pants. As he pulled the sweatshirt over his head he did a quick check of the room. Besides Kindle, who he had a feeling he was going to like, Summers, who he didn't, Charles, and Maranda, there were three other females and another male. All appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties. _Great, another school. _  
  
"Let me introduce you, mate. That there is Gambit," Kindle said, gesturing towards the boy.  
  
"Nice to meet you, _mon amie_," the Cajun said, saluting him with a playing card. The card glowed bright for a moment, before fading back to normal. Gambit shuffled it back into the deck in his hand.  
  
"This is the Oracle," Kindle continued the introductions, "Trisha Delaine."  
  
She gave him a warm smile. She was pretty, if a little on the short side, her looks enhanced by the well-cut suit-skirt and blouse.  
  
"That is Kat Walker, Lynx, and her little sister, LeAnna."  
  
Though both girls were extremely beautiful, they looked nothing alike. The older had short black hair and high cheekbones, the younger was pale, with long red hair, and looked oddly familiar. It had to do with her hair, with Red.  
  
"What's the dress for dinner?" Kat asked, shattering Logan's train of thought.  
  
"Semi formal, as usual," the doctor answered, not surprised by the sudden interruption. She smiled down at Xavier, "You're welcome to join us, of course."  
  
"Great," Logan said, pushing away from the bed, "I'm starved."  
  
"Good," she said, stepping up to him, "Back on the bed please."  
  
Logan looked at her.  
  
"You can join us, but you're* not leaving this room until I examine you again."  
  
Logan saw Xavier and Kindle over her shoulder, by the amused looks on their faces he figured he better do as he was told. Though he doubted she could stop him, the rest could probably do some damage before he could get anywhere. Not that he had anywhere to go.  
  
He expected everyone to leave, they didn't. OK, so he wouldn't undress.  
  
Before he could even lie down, She stepped up to him, holding her hand less than an inch over the center of his chest.  
  
"Good, the remaining damage to your heart has been repaired," she said, her eyes closed. She moved her hand over his torso, "As has the rest of the damage."  
  
"Like I said, I'm fine."  
  
She arched an eyebrow but didn't open her eyes. "You should stop smoking."  
  
"Why? I can heal-"  
  
"Yes you can, but it doesn't mean that you can expel tar from your lungs like air," she said, opening her eyes, "Sooner rather than later it's going to effect you."  
  
She closed her eyes and began to move her hand over his abdomen, then lower.  
  
It was Logan's turn to raise an eyebrow.  
  
"Your lucky that the male genitalia is located outside of the body."  
  
Logan's jaw dropped, but she continued in her detached clinical voice, "It avoided the worst of the electoral arcing. I'm not sure that even your remarkable healing abilities would be able to help a woman who sustained the same trauma."  
  
_Not that it matters, _ Logan thought, _I can't have children anyway. _  
  
After quickly running her hands over his on the table, she placed her hands on either side of his head, much like Jean had.  
  
_Who do you think Jean was mimicking? _he heard Xavier's voice followed by a chuckle in his head, _Me? _  
  
Logan's eyes locked with Xavier's. He had forgotten how powerful a telepath he was, and he was uneasy about having him poking around in his head.  
  
Xavier made no reply.  
  
"Charles tells me that you are suffering from amnesia."  
  
Logan grunted an answer.  
  
"Well, I can tell you the original physical cause."  
  
That got Logan's full attention.  
  
"What? How?" He didn't ask what he most wanted to know: _Can it be fixed? _  
  
"From what I can tell, it was another sustained electrical burst, coupled with the infusion of adamantium. The alloy reacted with the myelin sheath. It was only your recuperative powers that saved you from being totally paralyzed, even your heart, causing death. But, unlike the rest of your body, and even most of your brain, that was able to replace the incapacitated neurons, the areas related to declarative memory have remained coated. The amount is insufficient to be picked up by even Charles's equipment. Anyway, as the brain does when it is damaged, it quarantined off the area with glial cells-"  
  
"In English, Doc." Kindle cut in.  
  
"Basically, when the adamantium was infused onto his bones, it left lasting damage to the part of the brain responsible for remembering personal history. He could still walk and talk, but had lost all memory of personally experienced events.  
  
"The braid cornered off the damaged area and it was never repaired."  
  
"But he's experienced brain damage since and not been effected," Summers interjected.  
  
"It had to do with either the electrical charge or the adamantium, or a drug he was on at the time."  
  
Logan took a deep breath, "Can it be fixed."  
  
"Yes, I could remove the adamantium and the quarantine cells."  
  
For the first time Logan could remember, he could honestly say he was on cloud nine.  
  
"But even I can't make neurons grow."  
  
Logan hit the ground with a thud. He remembered why he hated to fly.  
  
"Would trying do any more damage?" Logan's voice sounded toneless even to himself.  
  
Maranda shrugged, "At the moment, your memories are perfectly preserved. If we could maintain cognitive connection, they would be as clear as the day of the experiment. And besides having to deal with the unavoidable psychological damage that event would cause, if we could not get reconnection, there is a good chance that the memories would fade, the space in your brain being taken up by other memories."  
  
"Damned if you do, damned if you don't," Logan muttered.  
  
"Logan," Maranda said, forcing eye contact, "If Charles and I can't help you, there's no one that can."  
  
She stepped away from him, "Think about it."  
  
"Perhaps, he think better on a full stomach, no?" Gambit put in.  
  
Maranda laughed and shook her head, "Go get changed."  
  
Logan watched as everyone left, not sure what to do. He couldn't go to a semi formal dinner in sweats. Well, he could, but he doubted it would go over well.  
  
"Come on, mate," Kindle said, the last to leave, "I think we should be able to get you something to wear."  
  
Five minutes later, Logan stood in one of the house's guest rooms, staring at a large closet of clothes of every description. All he could manage to ask was "Why?"  
  
"We're sort of a halfway house for mutants on the run," Kindle said, shoulder deep in shirts, "Most of the people who stay with us can't bring anything with them, or they can't take it when they go. Alex likes them to feel at home while they are here."  
  
"Alex?"  
  
"Yeah, she's the leader of this brumby mob. You haven't met her yet." He pulled out a shirt. "Here it is."  
  
It was frosted black silk to go with the black dress pants. Definitely not what Logan would have chosen for himself. He looked at Kindle.  
  
"It's not my idea, mate." Kindle tapped the side of his head.  
  
Logan lifted an eyebrow.  
  
"Don't tell me you didn't get one?"  
  
"One what?"  
  
Kindle just sighed and moved away from him. Logan turned and watched him rummage around in the top drawer of one of the night stands.  
  
"The whole house is rigged for sound, sight, too, for that matter, but she prefers not to use the overhead speakers if it isn't an emergency, says it's impersonal. Ah," he said, pulling a box from the drawer, "here it is."  
  
He flipped open the lid and pulled something out. Dropping the box back into the drawer, he squinted down at the piece of black plastic between his fingers. "Sarah, love, could you please rig number 25 for Logan here."  
  
"Sarah?" If there were many more names his head was going to explode.  
  
Kindle just smiled and handed the piece of plastic to Logan. It appeared to be a small hearing aid. He looked up at Kindle, raising a quizzical eyebrow.  
  
"She ain't going to hurt you, mate."  
  
_What the hell, _Logan thought and slid the ear piece into his left ear.  
  
"Hello," a female voice purred.  
  
"Logan," Kindle said, a smile playing on his lips, "let me introduce you to our AI, the Security and Environmental Regulating system, Archetype: Habitat. She knows exactly where you are and hears everything you say. If you need anything, just ask. And if you want to talk to any of us, she can patch you through. That's how _LeAnna_ chose your attire for the evening."  
  
_Great, Big Brothers-Are-Us. _  
  
"I'll see you at dinner," Kindle said moving towards the door.  
  
Before Logan could ask where the dining room was, Kindle was gone.  
  
"Great, just great."  
  
"You are distressed," the voice in his ear purred.  
  
"How am I going to get to dinner?"  
  
"When you are prepared, I will guide you there. I could of course tell you how to get there now, but I have found that organics tend to forget directions quickly."  
  
_Arrogant too. _ Logan paused as he pulled the sweatshirt over his head, _But of course, it's female_.  
  
  
  
Logan took the last turn into the dining room. He rolled his shoulders under the black shirt. It felt good to wear silk again...except he couldn't remember ever wearing silk.  
  
They were all there, Xavier, Summers, Kindle, and he fought to put names to the rest of them. LeAnna and her 'sister' Kat/Lynx. The Doc, Gambit, and...what's her name, the business type, the Oracle...ah, Trisha. God, these people had too many names.  
  
A door opened at the far end of the room. All he could do was stare.  
  
Her legs grew out of suede black pumps and seemed to go on forever. Her black skirt brushed her knees. Her emerald green angora sweater hugged her curves. Her smooth skin would smell of peaches, her full lips would taste of watermelon. Except her lips were pressed into a thin line, and her inviting green eyes were shooting daggers that Summers unfiltered gaze would be hard pressed to match.  
  
One of the men in the room whistled and Logan's first instinct was to deck him.  
  
This all left one huge question: _Who was this beautiful stranger? _


	4. Chapter 4

Alex glared at Logan for a moment, glad that she had decided to block before entering the room. Uncle Charles couldn't know about this, any of it.  
  
It wasn't as if she didn't trust him to respect her privacy...well, yes, it was, actually. He seemed to think he knew what was best for everyone, and, despite the little voice in the back of her mind that told her he hadn't been wrong so far, this was something she had to deal with on her own. Even if she did long to talk to someone, but that was that little voice again, the one who had been telling her since she ran from the med-lab that she should talk to _him_. It was an insane, treacherous little voice.  
  
Pulling her eyes off him, she forced herself to smile. She had learned from Sarah that Logan had no memory prior to fifteen years ago. Sarah had gotten the information from Charles's mainframe and thus from Charles, so it had to be true. Not that it mattered, there was still a year unaccounted for. A year she hated him for. All his memory loss meant was that she had nothing to fear from him...and that it would be easier to make him pay. And he would pay, for everything.  
  
The grin she threw at Peter was more than a little tinged with sex appeal.  
  
"You like?" she said, turning in a circle fast enough for the flared skirt to ripple around her knees.  
  
He stepped forward and brushed her knuckles with his lips, "As beautiful as ever."  
  
Alex chuckled. At 30, he was too young for her, but he was a natural flirt, and so was she for that matter.  
  
"Why sir," she said, fanning herself with an imaginary fan and talking with a thick southern accent, "I do believe you are going to make me blush."  
  
"There's a first for everything," Maranda said.  
  
Alex stuck the vary tip of her tongue out at her. She must have caught Maranda in a good mood, no doubt thanks to Charles's presence, because she returned the gesture. That got the entire room laughing, everyone but _him_. He didn't look like he was having a good time at all.  
  
Peter showed her to her seat at the head of the table, than held her chair, earning him a darker scowl from Logan.  
  
"Logan," Charles said, "I'd like to introduce my niece, Alexandra Walker."  
  
Logan looked confused for a moment, before looking between herself and LeAnna and Kat, who were standing near by.  
  
"Another sister?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.  
  
Alex nearly laughed out loud. Although it was nice to be mistaken for her daughters' sister, she never thought he would, he had always been such a good judge of age. Ice dripped from her smile, "Something like that. Please, take a seat."  
  
"Thanks," Logan said, and took the empty seat next to Uncle Charles.   
  
  
  
Logan watched as they all bowed their heads, and the prayer they recited came to his own lips as they spoke it as one.  
  
The food was quickly passed around, and before Logan knew it, the plate in front of him was covered by the most balanced meal he'd had in years. The conversation was equally as wholesome, centering around Alex's trip, and what had happened in her absence. Logan was able to piece together that Alex was a long-hall trucker, and how Peter and Gambit found him, probably moments after the guys who had attacked him had rendered him unconscious.  
  
"So, what did they want?" Logan asked, the first time he opened his mouth to do anything but put food in it.  
  
"Well..." the professor started.  
  
"Peter, could you get that?" Trisha said.  
  
Kindle's head snapped up.  
  
The phone rang in the other room.  
  
"Sure," he laughed. He quickly excused himself from the table and left the room.  
  
"That all depends on whether or not they knew who you were," the doc said, getting back to Logan's question.  
  
"How could they?" Logan asked.  
  
"A Telepath or a Precog," Trisha said with a shrug, "or maybe even a Tracker."  
  
"Great," Summers said, "that means that he led them right to the school."  
  
"Not necessarily," the Doc countered, "None of these possibilities depend on keeping tabs on him at all times. And we don't know if any of them are right, he could just have been the first person who came by."  
  
"And even if he did lead them to the school," Alex said, "it isn't the first time the mean and nasties of this world have found out about the school, and it won't be the last."  
  
"I don't buy the coincidental idea," Kat said, shaking her head, "Why would they just attack someone?"  
  
"We know they were mutants," Alex said, "and a lot of mutants are as angry as the normal population. We're not _all_ saints," she gestured down the table to the professor, getting more than one chuckle.  
  
"Would you guys know them if you saw them again?" Trisha asked, including not only Logan, but Gambit in her question.  
  
"Of course," Gambit replied, and Logan nodded.  
  
Trisha gasped as the door opened and Kindle walked back into the room. He didn't look so good. He was pale and a portable phone was clutched in one hand, but Trisha wasn't looking at him. She was staring into space in front of her, not looking too good herself.  
  
"That was Susan," Kindle said. He addressed the statement to Alex, but the entire room stopped eating. "It's Richard, he's been kidnapped."  
  
"No," LeAnna whispered.  
  
"Take Wolverine and Lynx," Trisha said, and Logan turned to stare at her. He didn't think that anyone had mentioned his code name, and he wasn't wearing his dog tags.  
  
"Where?" Alex's question was a good one.  
  
"The abandoned air strip to the northwest. The six of you should be there in ten minutes by helicopter."  
  
"Six?"  
  
Trisha's eyes focused, "You, Kindle, Gambit, Cyclops, Lynx, and Wolverine."  
  
"Let's suit up," Alex said with a shake of her head as she pushed herself up from the table. "You don't mind, do you?"  
  
Logan almost answered before he realized that she was talking to Summers.  
  
"Not at all."  
  
"Good," she said, then turned her attention to Logan. "Until we step back into this house, you do everything I say without question."  
  
"Look, no offense kid," Logan said, standing up, "But aren't you a little young to be in charge?"  
  
"I'm no kid," she said, her eyes turning to ice.  
  
Logan eyes slid down her body then back up to her face, "You're what, all of twenty-two? And I thought following the Boy Scout was bad," he said, hitching a thumb at Summers.  
  
"Normally I would say 'Guess again', but we don't have that type of time.  
  
"I'm thirty-eight, which means I'm the oldest, if not the most experienced, one going, not to mention that I built this team from the ground up."  
  
"Bull shit."  
  
"'Bull shit' what?" she replied, "That I built this team? I assure you I did, though, I admit, fate had something to do with it. Or that I'm not the most experienced? You might be right there, but I didn't come into the freedom fighting business until a little later in my life, my mid-twenties actually. Or that I'm the oldest? You might be right there too. I've heard some speculation that you could be older than my uncle."  
  
"You're not thirty-eight," Logan growled.  
  
"Yes, she is."  
  
Logan looked down at the professor, then back up at Alex. There was no way...There was no _bloody_ way! She looked, hell, she _smelled_ like a woman of twenty-two, twenty-four max.  
  
"We're wasting time," Alex said, turning to the door, "We leave in ten."  
  
  
  
Alex boarded last as usual, and found the only seat left on the small helicopter was next to _him_.  
  
Slamming the door behind her, she gave the 'all's clear' to Gambit in the co-pilot's seat and Kindle eased the helicopter into the air.  
  
She reached above her head with both hands and gripped the bar above the door. It wouldn't be the first time she had taken a ride standing.  
  
She looked down at him, sitting directly in front of her.  
  
He had borrowed a suit from Scott. She was surprised it fit his wide shoulders.  
  
She watched as he extended his claws, cutting the leather of the gloves.  
  
"Try not to get so much blood on it this time," Scott said from where he sat, as far away from Logan as he could get.  
  
"I was saving your ass."  
  
"You were saving your own."  
  
"I spent a week unconscious saving _all_ our asses. And if I'm not mistaken, you didn't even brake a finger nail."  
  
"And to think," Kindle said over Alex's bulky headset, "We normally fight over who spent the least time unconscious."  
  
Alex smiled. Logan glowered. And for the first time in a long time, Alex felt the urge to giggle.  
  
The helicopter was jostled by turbulence, sending Alex sprawling into Logan's lap. She cursed herself for not having secured herself better as she stared into his eyes. His arms wrapped around her waist, the muscles of his legs on either side of her hips rippled as he braced them from tumbling back into the door. Even when the movement ceased, his legs didn't relax. His hands stayed low around her waist, her own on the front of his chest.  
  
"Kindly remove your hands," Kat's voice was anything but kindly. Scott, having been thrown about by the turbulence too, had braced himself with both hands…on Kat's breasts.  
  
Laughter bubbled up Alex's throat. She gave in to it, resting her head on Logan's shoulder, their earmuffs clinking with her silent laughter.  
  
The laughter turned into a hiccup as the helicopter suddenly lost altitude and her stomach joined her laughter in her throat.  
  
Suddenly, Logan flipped her over, covering her body with his. She felt the air rush out of him along her neck, followed by the sound of metal hitting metal, hard. Peering over his shoulder, she saw four sheared bolts that had been holding a mettle cabinet over their heads.  
  
The metallic smell of blood filled the helicopter. She ran her hand down his back. It came away wet with blood.  
  
Panic rose in her throat. She slipped from beneath him, reassured by the strength in his arms as he tried to stop her. As soon as she saw the gaping gash in his back all her panic came back ten fold.  
  
"Damn it, Kindle, you better have a bloody good explanation for this!" Alex had little doubt Kindle could have heard her even with out the headset.  
  
She knelt beside the bench, her right hand resting on the back of his neck, her thumb on his pulse point.  
  
"What happened?" Kindle's voice sounded far away as Alex pulled in on herself.  
  
Her eyes closed, she focused on obliterating most of the muscle in her upper arm. She replaced it with a sack of saline, using her own body's water and salt stores. The creation of a tube that ran down the bone to the heel of her hand was more complicated but routine, she had done in a dozen times before.  
  
"One of the cabinets fell, nearly decapitated Alex," Kat said. Alex barely heard her.  
  
Redesigning the mussels to squish the sack, she put her hand just over the gash high on Logan's back. She clenched the muscles and parted the skin at the end of the tube.  
  
Logan pulled in a quick breath as a jet of water washed away the blood. Bile rose in Alex's throat at the extent of the injury. The edges were ragged; it looked like it had been torn instead of cut. In the dim light of the cabin, Alex could see a metallic rib at the bottom of the bloody cut.  
  
She said a silent prayer of thanks for the metals infused onto his skeleton. She hadn't been looking forward to resetting his rib before it knitted itself wrong.  
  
Alex gathered more water and irrigated the cut again. This time it got a mild curse from Logan. "Damn, woman, what're you trying to do, kill me."  
  
"Call me that again, and I will," Alex said, relieved that the cut was already starting to close up.  
  
Closing the skin over the end of the tube, she rested her fingers lightly around the cut. She loaded microscopic spines on the pads with traces of cocaine and injected it into his skin.  
  
"Look, I feel better already," Logan said, trying to stand up.  
  
Laying on his stomach on the narrow bench didn't give him very good leverage and Alex easily pushed him back down.  
  
"That's the cocaine, now don't move."  
  
"Cocaine!?!" This time he tried to get up in earnest.  
  
Alex locked her elbow and shoulder, keeping his head on the bench.  
  
"It works as a short term anesthetic, and it restricts blood flow." And the fact was with his heightened metabolism, she had to maintain a continual drip, depleting her own body's resources. But thankfully, his increased metabolism was also healing him just as fast.  
  
As soon as the cut healed, she moved away from him to sit on the fallen cabinet, restoring her body's natural functions.  
  
  
  
Logan felt Alex withdraw. He sat up slowly, twisting his torso. There wasn't so much as a twinge.  
  
"We're landing in one," Kindle said over the headsets.  
  
"Look," Alex said, pulling the hair out of her eyes. "I don't like taking someone into a situation like this half blind. It leaves both you and the rest of my team in danger. So let's clear some things up right now."  
  
Logan watched as she pulled herself into freedom-fighter-leader mode. He'd seen a glimpse of it back at the clinic, but this was impressive. Everything changed, from her posture to her tone of voice.  
  
"First, the team's gifts.  
  
"Kindle deals with fire. He can create and control it. By extension, he also deals with air currents, giving him limited flying capabilities.  
  
"Gambit charges small objects with kinetic energy. When thrown they explode on contact.  
  
"Lynx is telacybernetic. She can interface directly with computers."  
  
Logan looked over at Kat. As he watched, her eyes changed into the almost glowing yellow of cats eyes, complete with elongated pupils. As quickly as the change happened, it reversed itself. Kat just smiled at him.  
  
"And you?" Logan said, turning back to Alex.  
  
"I'm the Chameleon," Alex said, her grin mischievous, "I'm anything I need to be."  
  
She turned to Summers and Lynx. "You two get in and find out what you can from the computer system."  
  
She pointed a finger at Summers, "Anything happens to her it's coming out of your hide.  
  
"Kindle, Gambit, go in with them as far as you can." She turned to Logan, "I guess that leaves you to me."  
  
The helicopter bumped down.  
  
"Let's fly." Alex, still smiling, pulled open the door and jumped to the ground before the blades stopped spinning.  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Logan crouched behind a snowdrift. Alex leaned against the thin trunk of the nearest tree. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. They were far enough from the helicopter for him to catch only the lingering tang of oil and fuel. In front of them, was an old airport, full of cold, spilt, oil, and unused jet fuel. But the dominant smell, overshadowing and nearly obliterating them, was her. Warm, alive, and exciting.  
  
"The airfield is just over the rise. There's a Bowing seven thirty-seven, seven hundred class I think, sitting on the runway. By the smell, I think it's just been fueled," she looked back over her shoulder at him, "Ready?"  
  
Before he could answer, she slipped away. Logan watched her go, nearly loosing her in the shadows. She moved easily across the snow, barely seeming to break the surface. Unlike Logan, who had to trudge after her, sinking shin deep in brittle snow. He suddenly felt very old.  
  
By the time he made his way to the tarmac, Alex had completely vanished.  
  
He stepped gratefully out of the snow. Summers' suit had not been made for winter conditions in Alberta. Before he could take another step, his feet when out from under him, "Shit."  
  
A hand grabbed his collar under the chin, barely stopping him from falling on his ass.  
  
Logan looked down at Alex, realizing she had been standing there the entire time. Her face away from him, her hair black in the moonlight, she had blended nearly perfectly into the black tarmac.  
  
"Be careful." Her voice was low, and harsh, but when she removed her warm fingers from inside his collar, she smooth the nonexistent wrinkles in his shirt. Logan wondered if she could send more mixed signals if she tried. _Women. _ "Come on."  
  
Logan watched again as she nearly dissolved into the tarmac, easily making her way towards the landing gear. He followed her more slowly. She might not have any trouble making her way over the ice sheet, but without his ice skates, it wasn't quite as easy for him.  
  
He eventually made his way over to the landing gear without falling, and had to use his nose to find her crouched by the tires, nearly lost in the smell of the salt that had been spread over the runway.  
  
"Wait here," she whispered.  
  
Where was he going to go? Where was _she_ going to go, for that matter?  
  
Logan searched the surrounding area in the dim light, hoping they hadn't attracted any attention on their way across the snow and tarmac. Then again, a fight he could handle; sneaking and crawling wasn't his thing. And it would be a good chance to show Little-Miss-Perfect that he was good for something other than ordering around.  
  
He looked back to the wheels. Alex wasn't there.  
  
A movement above him made him look up.  
  
His jaw nearly hit the icy ground. Alex was crawling up the plane like a bug, with no visible equipment. _What the…?_  
  
He was still staring when, what appeared to be a white rope, shot over the wing and attached itself to the ground.  
  
He stepped closer. About the diameter of a nickel, it felt vaguely soft, even through his glove. Pulling his hand away, he brought his fingers to his nose. It smelled of…spider webbing. Who did she think she was? Spiderman?  
  
She poked her head over the edge of the wing, "Are you coming?"  
  
Shaking his head, he grabbed the rope, surprised at how secure it felt. He pulled himself up, hand over hand.  
  
When he reached the top, she held out her right hand, her left hand still holding the rope. Her grip was firm around his upper arm. She didn't let go when both of his feet were placed on the top of the wing, which was probably a good thing. She might not have a problem keeping her balance, but the metal of the wing was covered in a thin lair of ice, and Summers' boots didn't have the best grip.  
  
She yanked on the rope, pulling it free from whatever had secured it to the ground. He watched the rope recoil into the base of her palm. He blinked as the end of the rope disappeared into the hand. She balled her fist twice before moving towards the door. Logan followed.  
  
He glanced down at the exterior handle, then up at her.  
  
"Why are there handles on out side? I didn't think they loaded people through the doors above the wings."  
  
"They don't," she said from where she had stationed herself looking in through the window. "But it's easier to just make one door for all six emergency exits."  
  
She had a point.  
  
"Now," she said, gesturing at him. Planting his feet, he pulled the door open, staggering under the weight as it came off in his arms. She slipped past him into the plane.  
  
He had to shift the door to see into the cabin. It took him a moment to locate her. She was crouched in the front stewardess area. She straightened and moved towards him, stepping over the body of the guard.  
  
Leaving him sprawled on the floor, she walked back towards Logan. She took the door from him from the other side. "Are you coming in? You're letting in a draft."  
  
Shaking his head, he let go of the door and moved around it.  
  
As he made his way to the guard, he realized the plane was almost full of unconscious kids, most around fourteen.  
  
Bending over the guard, he found a pulse. There was no visible sign of trauma, no reason for him to be unconscious.  
  
He looked up to see Alex pulling the door back into place. She walked away from him down the plane, checking on the kids. He did some quick calculations. Six kids per row, twenty-four rows. A hundred and forty-for kids. _Damn. _   
  
As she crouched down beside him, she didn't look too pleased, "He's not here."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Richard, he's not on the plane."  
  
"Shit."  
  
Footsteps echoed up the metal stairs through the open door beside them.  
  
"Bathroom, now," she mouthed more than said the words.  
  
Logan grabbed the guard under the arms and pulled him across the carpeted floor. Alex held the door open, then slipped in behind him. Logan dumped the unconscious man on the toilet then turned to find himself face to face with Alex. The bathroom wasn't big enough for three, leaving the lip of the shallow counter biting into his back, and Alex pressed to his front, her hands on his chest, his own instinctively going around her waist.  
  
The outer door slammed.  
  
"Where's Ford?" the voice was male and had a European accent.  
  
Logan swore. Alex raised her hand to his face, putting her fingers on his lips. Logan had an insane urge to nibble on them.  
  
Outside, there was a short laugh and an American man answered, "He's in the bathroom again. He should realize he can't eat Martha's cooking."  
  
Logan breathed a sigh of relief, before he heard someone pounding on the door to the cockpit, and the European man saying, "They've got something special planned for the last one. We've got the go."  
  
Immediately the bathroom began to vibrate as the plane quickly accelerated down the runway.  
  
Alex turned her head away from the door, "Oh, shit."  
  


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	6. Chapter 6

Waves of fear shot through Kindle, tearing at his mind.  
  
In front of him stood three men. Behind them, Richard was tied to a chair. Kindle couldn't remember ever being this terrified in his life.  
  
With the rest of his team behind him, he watched one of the men raise his gun. That finally snapped Kindle out of his stupor.  
  
Reaching around him, he went to grab Lynx, to pull her to cover. To his surprise, she pulled away from him and jumped out of his reach. The effect was the same, however, as her movement put her behind a large pile of crates.  
  
He spun around to face his attackers, to find the first one crumpled on the ground, Gambit going at another with his fists. As Kindle watched, Gambit landed a punch to the side of his opponent's head, lighting up his glasses and knocking him to the ground. As soon as the kinetically charged glasses came in hard contact with the cement floor, they exploded. The man screamed, clutching at his bleeding eyes. Totally oblivious, Gambit had already rounded on the last of them. Fortunately, _he_ was not oblivious. His own eyes wide with fear, he backed away from Gambit, his hands shielding his face, begging Gambit not to hit him. Gambit didn't seem to hear him and continued to advance.  
  
"Gambit!" He didn't respond. Kindle grabbed his arm and whipped him around, "That's enough."  
  
Gambit's eyes cleared, and Kindle realized they hadn't been clouded with rage but fear. Some of Kindle's own fear dissipated.  
  
"Lynx needs you," he gestured to the crates. Gambit nodded.  
  
Kindle turned to the remaining kidnapper, still huddled against the wall. He hauled him up by the front of his collar. The man continued to blubber, begging Kindle not to hurt him. Hauling back, Kindle hit him in the jaw, knocking him out.  
  
Kindle dropped him and moved to Richard. Kneeling in front of him, Kindle lit a small flame under the rope on the bottom of the hand rest. "Don't worry, we're friends of your Mom's."  
  
Richard nodded and Kindle felt his fear recede. The boy seemed to be unhurt. As soon as he had burnt through all the ropes, Kindle went over to the kidnapper unconscious against the wall and slung him over his shoulder, before gesturing for Richard to follow him, "Let's get out of here."  
  
Lynx was standing markedly away from Gambit as Kindle made his way towards them. That worried Kindle. Lynx was not to keen on men, with good reason, but she had never had a problem with Gambit. Normally she didn't see him as a threat. But her voice was strong when she turned to Kindle, "Where is Cyclops?"  
  
Kindle looked around, and saw no sign of him, "Oh, shit."  
  
  
  
"You can say that again," Logan said, reaching for the door handle.  
  
"Just a minute," she said, putting her hand over his.  
  
"What? You want to stay in here till we get where they are going? Don't you think they'll get a little suspicious?"  
  
"No. But if we stop it here, we don't know how many people they have on site."  
  
"Can't Kindle and Cyclops deal with them?"  
  
She shook her head, "They're supposed to keep their heads down. And I won't put over a hundred kids in danger."  
  
"And what happens when we get in the air?" he continued to argue with her in a whisper, "Are you prepared to fly this thing?"  
  
"Auto pilots today are very affective, we wouldn't have to do anything."  
  
"I hope you're right."  
  
A shutter ran through the plane as the wheels lost contact with the ground. Logan almost missed her whispered, "Me too."  
  
Before he could call her on it, she opened the door and slipped soundlessly out into the corridor. Shaking his head, he followed her.  
  
He stepped around the door in time to see her run her fingers across both of the startled men's throats. They stared at her mutely, their mouths working as if they were trying to say something, before they slumped over in their chairs. He stood there, stunned, staring at her, "How did you do that?"  
  
She turned to face him, "I have genetic control of my cells. So, using the genetics of several different insects, I loaded microscopic spines on my fingertips with neurotoxins, a paralytic and sleeping agent. Remarkably effective at making silent takedowns."  
  
As she walked past him, she lifted his jaw to close his mouth, "I'm not exactly new at this."  
  
She stepped up to the door to the cockpit, "Damn, it's locked. Could you check those guys for keys?"  
  
Not bothering to search any of the unconscious men, Logan walked up behind her. Reaching towards the lock, he extended one claw. It sliced easily through the metal of the door, cutting away the bolt.  
  
"Well, that was certainly effective," she said, her eyes on his claw as he removed it from the door.  
  
He smiled as he reached around her with his other hand. Embedding all three of his claws in the door, he pulled it open for her.  
  
As he followed her into the cockpit, he saw her reach around the pilot's seat from behind. As the pilot slumped forward in his seat, Logan saw he was wearing a large pair of headphones. Logan sure as hell hoped they had prevented him from hearing the rending of the metal. The last thing they needed was for him to have raised an alarm.  
  
Leaving the pilot in his seat, Alex sat down in the seat beside him. Logan watched as she ran her hand through her hair and blinked twice, opening her eyes wide. Before he could do more than shake his head, she was already messing with the board in front of her.  
  
"Ouuu, touch screen," she reached out to the lit up screen in front of her, "Let's see, change destination."  
  
She pressed firmly on the screen. A text prompt popped up.  
  
_Enter Password_.  
  



	7. Chapter 7

Kat closed her eyes and tried to remember the tricks Uncle X had taught her to drained her emotions from her memories.  
  
She took a deep breath and tried to turn away from them. It didn't help to remember that he couldn't hurt her anymore. That just brought up another nightmare.  
  
No, no, no. She wouldn't go there. She wasn't going to pull all that up.  
  
She fed her determination on the anger. Opening her eyes, she turned to Kindle, her jaw set, ready to deal with the disappearance of Cyclops.  
  
The door to the tarmac opened. _He_ walked through, the all too real human that haunted her, even after all these years. "Who the hell are you?"  
  
Kat froze.  
  
An instant before Kindle's fireball exploded in his face, he faded, leaving behind a stranger.  
  
The man standing beside him flew into the room, landing hard on a crate. Cyclops stepped out of the darkness, his hand on his visor control.  
  
"Where have you been, mate?" Kindle said, fire still sparkling in his hand.  
  
Cyclops looked embarrassed for a moment before he pulled himself together, "Checking the perimeter. These are the last of them. But a plane just took off."  
  
"Bloody wonderful," Kindle shook his head and made a quick fist, putting out the last of the fire.  
  
The earpiece in Kat's ear crackled and Alex's voice came through, "Lynx, come in. Do you read me? This is Cam, please respond."  
  
"I'm reading you Cam, where are you?"  
  
"I'm on the plane and there's a bit of a problem."  
  
"And that would be?"  
  
"I want to change our destination but the autopilot is asking for a password."  
  
Kat's dismay must have shown on her face, because Kindle asked, "What now?"  
  
"Alex is on the plane. I need a computer. Now."  
  
"There is one on the second floor," Gambit said, than gestured towards the main entrance, "The stairway is over there."  
  
As she ran for the stairs she heard Cyclops ask, "Does that mean the plane is under control."  
  
"I don't know, mate. I just don't know."  
  
Kat took the stairs two at a time. When she got to the top she groaned. Gambit's blast damage had taken out the operators chair as well as the screen. A body lay against one wall. Years of Alex's teaching made her move to the body. A quick check found that he was unconscious, but alive. Sighing in relief, she moved back to the keyboard, and prayed the computer was in better shape.  
  
Leaning over, she rested her fingers on the keys. She was instantly sucked into the computer world.  
  
_Cam_, she thought, sending it through her hookup with Alex, _I'm in their system._  
  
She did a quick look around, easily finding the password, but she hesitated to give it to Alex. She went in deeper.  
  
_Shit, _ she thought, _Cam, their tracing the plane, if I let you change destinations they'll know, and probably be waiting for you. _  
  
"They'll be waiting for us if we don't change it."  
  
_Give me a minute, I'll see what I can do. _  
  
Kat when in deeper, then branched out onto the remote network. It took her a few minutes, but she found what she was looking for. She started spinning out code, like a spider did web, quickly becoming lost in her work.  
  
"Lynx?"  
  
_Almost done. _ She worked a few more minutes before opening her eyes.  
  
_OK, I've duplicated the plane in the Air Control computer, I'll leave the dummy to fly to the original destination. The bad guys won't know it's not real until they can't get visual comf. I've given you a new flight number and origin point. So, where are we headed this evening? _  
  
"XSY."  
  
_As in X-ray Sierra Yankee? _  
  
"Or Xavier School Youngsters."  
  
_Ahh. _  
  
  
  
LeAnna sat back and watched as Charles played her cards, the warm weight of Syrus leaning on her leg. It was an odd habit, playing cards with her elders. But as long as she could remember, at night, they had always played cards. When she was younger, it had been Go Fish and Old Maid. Now they played Crib, Harts, Spades, Poker, and tonight Bridge. And since her partner had one the bid, at the moment she didn't have to play.  
  
Charles won the first trick.  
  
"Serves me right for playing against a Telepath," Maranda said over her cards.  
  
Charles smiled, "You know that I don't cheat."  
  
"Of course not," she said, "You just make effective use of your abilities."  
  
Charles just smiled and shook his head.  
  
"Your team is not without its own advantages," LeAnna said, leaning back in her chair.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"You have Trish."  
  
"Are you implying _I_ cheat?" Trisha said, doing a very good job of looking down her nose at LeAnna.  
  
"Aren't you the one who is always saying you can't control when your going to get a flash, that you can concentrate to bring one, but they can pop up any time?"  
  
"True," Trisha conceded, as she laid down a trump and won the second trick.  
  
"But a flash of a hand of cards won't do me much good if I don't know who's going to get it, or when. It could be tonight, it could have been last night, or it could be a week from now."  
  
"Party pooper," LeAnna said. Trisha laughed.  
  
Syrus wined beside her. She automatically reached out and ran her hand over his head. He just wined louder.  
  
"Syrus," LeAnna said, warningly.  
  
He butted her hand with his head and whimpered. LeAnna scratched behind his ears.  
  
"Is anything wrong?" Charles asked.  
  
"No," LeAnna said, "He just doesn't like it when Mom and Peter are both gone."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Alex and Peter are the pack alphas," Maranda said.  
  
Charles looked more confused.  
  
"Pack hierarchy," Trisha supplied, "Alex and Peter are the leaders of the pack-"  
  
"Peter will be glad that you think so," Maranda broke in.  
  
"And Syrus is a bodyguard, or enforcer," Trisha continued as if she hadn't been interrupted, "specifically assigned to this very valuable pack mate, who of course can't defend herself."  
  
"Thanks a lot," LeAnna said.  
  
"Your welcome."  
  
"And the pack leaders absence makes him uneasy?" Charles said.  
  
"Yeah," LeAnna said, "It leaves him vulnerable. Alone he can't protect all of the packs territory, let a lone any one member of the pack, and a vulnerable territory leaves all the pack in danger."  
  
"But he's not alone?"  
  
"He knows that we can't fight a trespasser physically," Maranda said, including Trisha and LeAnna as well as herself in the _we_.  
  
"And he doesn't know how your gifts work," LeAnna added, "So that leaves him."  
  
"Ah," Charles said, finally returning his attention to the game enough to play his next card.  
  
Syrus wined again, pulling his paw in her lap.  
  
LeAnna rolled her eyes, "Or maybe he just wants a treat."  
  
Pushing her chair back she excused herself and made her way to the kitchen. Syrus's nails clicked on the hard wood floors as he walked beside her. Her hand rested comfortably on his neck. She was almost always in physical contact with him, and he was never out of calling distance, not since he had been given to her as a pup three years earlier, by a family they had helped relocate. They had bonded so quickly he had refused to leave when the family did.  
  
He turned his head and looked at her, and she could have sworn he smiled. But he did that often, panted just so that the corners of his lips turned up.  
  
She gave him a pat and paused to open the kitchen door, holding it open for him to go ahead of her.  
  
He did a quick tour of the floor, looking for anything Maranda might have dropped in making dinner.  
  
LeAnna reached up to open the door over the peninsula that separated the cooking area from the rest of the kitchen where they normally ate. Standing on her tiptoes she reached for the box of dog bones on the top shelf.  
  
A light flashed out side of the floor to ceiling windows. Syrus lifted his head, going into alert mode.  
  
The bones forgotten, LeAnna stared out the windows, "Sarah, could you turn off the lights please."  
  
The room fell into darkness. Slowly LeAnna made her way around the counter, staring out the window, trying desperately to figure out what she had seen out side.  
  
Syrus growled beside her. She looked down at him, "Do you know what's out there?"  
  
He made no response.  
  
As she turned to look back out the window, Syrus leapt at her. Bringing her hands up automatic to cushion her fall, she hit the floor hard. Glass shattered around her. She fought to breath.  
  
Everything around her shifted. The darkness around her changed, and in what little light the moon-_the moon? _-provided, she saw the tops of three giant heads. Human heads. And they weren't huge, she was tiny. There was too much to get used to, too much had changed. One of the men put a loaded crossbow to his shoulder, aiming at the house on the opposite hill. LeAnna realized it was _her_ house. She screamed, and leaped from the branch she had been perched on, diving at his head. Bird cry filled her ears.  
  
He automatically ducked away from her, sending the arrow into the air. It arced and landed in a snowdrift, sending a plume of white dust into the air.  
  
On the other side of the group, another man loaded a crossbow. LeAnna dove at him.  
  
Pain radiated out from her shoulder blades an instant before the world snapped black.  
  
She didn't even have time to scream. 


	8. Chapter 8

Charles looked up when he heard glass brake in the kitchen. It sounded too loud for a single glass.  
  
"Defense perimeter breached. Defense perimeter breached," Sarah sounded scared...and mad, "Someone's blowing up my kitchen windows!"  
  
_LeAnna! _ Charles dumped his cards on the table and wheeled himself towards the doors.  
  
Maranda hit the doors first, running head long into the darken room. She yelled for lights. Sarah automatically complied.  
  
Trisha was right behind her but she stopped just inside the door, hold open the door for Charles.  
  
He gave the room a quick scan, taking in the broken window. The glass spread across the floor. Maranda leaning over LeAnna. Syrus beside her, talking at Maranda as if he was trying to tell her something. Before throwing his mind out the window.  
  
He found the attackers easily. They where in the woods on hill across the road, well off the property line.  
  
He closed his eyes and concentrated. It was easy to make two of them scatter. They where weak minds, followers. Their leader gave him a little trouble. Hate burned in him, burning away Charles's gentler attempts to make him leave. Charles own anger faired. He know what ever this man had done, still had his Grand-niece laying on the floor, unresponsive to his mental touch. Flame touched flame, and the man ran.  
  
Charles opened his eyes and looked at Maranda.  
  
She looked back at him, her eyes full of tears.  
  
  
  
Peter put the helicopter down, and turned to Gambit beside him.  
  
"Could you deal with him?" he asked, gesturing behind them with his head.  
  
"In the closet?"  
  
Peter nodded and pulled off his headset. Dumping it on the seat, he jumped from the helicopter. Automatically ducking under the slowing blades he made his way to the door into the house. Kat quickly followed him, Scott and Richard not far behind. Gambit lagged behind with the thug over his shoulder.  
  
"Hello?" Peter was surprised no one had come to great them. "Sarah, where is everyone?"  
  
"They're in the med-lab," Sarah said, her voice near monotone.  
  
"Why?"  
  
She didn't respond.  
  
"Sarah," Kat said behind him, "Talk to me."  
  
She made no response Peter could here.  
  
"Shit," Kat said, braking into a run in the direction of the main computer control.  
  
Peter picked up his own pace, throwing over his shoulder, "Scott, why don't you take Richard upstairs where he can get cleaned up."  
  
By the time he reached the med-lab doors he was running.  
  
Trisha met him just out side the double doors. As he came to a stop in front of her, he saw tear stains on her cheeks.  
  
"Trish?"  
  
She took a shaky breath in and brought her hand to hand to her face, covering her mouth. Her face crumpled and she started to cry again. "She...she...they can't..."  
  
Peter reached out to her, pulling her too him. She buried her head in his shoulder and sobbed. As soon as she quieted, he sifted her to his side, still holding her close.  
  
He took a deep breath and opened the door, not knowing what he would find on the other side.  
  
Charles sat at he head of the med-bed. Maranda stood beside him. LeAnna lay on the bed, achingly pail.  
  
"No," he said on a breath, so quiet they didn't hear him.  
  
But Syrus did. He wined.  
  
Peter frowned as the dog slowly crawled on his belly towards Peter, his head down and cocked to one side.  
  
Maranda looked up. She put a hand on Charles shoulder before making her way towards Peter and Trisha.  
  
"She's alive," she said as soon as she reached them, her voice just above whisper, "but totally unresponsive. Charles is trying to reach her, but..."  
  
Maranda looked over her shoulder back at the bed. "There is no medical reason for her to be unconscious. All she sustained was miner cuts."  
  
"What happened?"  
  
"We didn't know," Maranda said, turning back to him, "We were playing cards, and LeAnna went into the kitchen to get Syrus a treat. We here glass brake and Sarah said someone had shot an arrow though the window.  
  
"When we got there, LeAnna was lying on the floor, Syrus standing over her."  
  
"What can I do?"  
  
Maranda smiled sadly and put her hand on his arm, "Pray."  
  
  
  
Charles pushed at the darkness, fighting his way through.  
  
Slowly, the world reformed around him.  
  
Taking a deep breath, he jumped from the branch, landing silently on the snow beneath. He looked back up and saw a robin perched on the branch. It was one of the many birds that stayed around Alex's house no matter how much snow was on the ground.  
  
But it wasn't just a bird. It was LeAnna.  
  
Slowly the seen before him played out. He watched as one of the men aimed his crossbow. He heard the bird scream and dive at him. He flinched away when the arrowhead exploded in the snow. He watched as the bird gained height and dove again. And he watched with dread as the man behind the bird raised a stick and smashed the bird to the ground.  
  
Then everything stopped, frozen.  
  
Charles stepped carefully around the frozen figures, and crouched by the bird. He gently picked it up, ran his finger over it's soft head, felt it's remaining heat seep from it.  
  
Gently, he put the dead bird back on the glimmering snow, and made his way to the house.  
  
It was dark and empty. He footsteps echoed down the hall and he made his way towards the kitchen.  
  
She was laying where they found her, but intend of almost flat on her face, she was curled on her side in the fetal position, her knees up, her arms covering her head.  
  
As he made his way to her, he heard a voice and was startled to realizes it was _Syrus_ whispering, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. _  
  
"Syrus?"  
  
The dog looked up at him, and Charles could see the pain in his eyes.  
  
_I didn't mean to hurt her. I was trying to get her out of the way. _  
  
"You didn't hurt her," Charles said, trying not to show how uneasy he was talking to an animal.  
  
_But she won't take to me. She always talked to me. Even in dreams she talks to me. _  
  
Charles was shocked at the depth of the bond LeAnna had with the dog in fount of him. He had seen how quickly he responded to her, and he had guest that her gift had something to do with it, but he had no idea how far it had developed, how far _she_ had developed.  
  
Charles knelt beside the dog.  
  
"She's in a great deal of pain," he said. He felt the dog's sorrow increase and quickly added, "None of which you caused."  
  
He reached out his other hand and ran it over LeAnna's hair, "LeAnna?"  
  
Her voice was low, and filled with misery, "Go away."  
  
With a jolt, Charles found himself in his own body. He heard Syrus howl.  
  
He took his hands from the sides of LeAnna's head, letting them fall to his lap. He bowed his head. His shoulders protested. His whole body felt tense and achy.  
  
"Charles," he heard Maranda behind him, but made no move to respond. He felt her put her warm hands between his shoulder blades and felt the tension dissipate.  
  
He took a deep breath, "She's in there, but she doesn't want to come out."  
  
"Why?" Maranda asked, sliding her hands up to his shoulders, her thumbs lay along his spine up his neck.  
  
Charles reached up and put his hands over hers, "She's morning."  
  
"Who?" Charles opened his eyes, and looked at Peter.  
  
"A bird," at the look of confusion on Peters face, Charles continued, "She was in the mind of a robin when it died."  
  
"Is there anything you can do?" Maranda asked.  
  
Charles shook his head, "I can't give her my help until she wants it."  
  
"We can't stay here," Trisha said. All eyes in the room turned to her.  
  
"Why?" Peter asked.  
  
"They'll be back," she said, staring in front of her, "And next time they won't stop," her voice hitched and she turned to Peter, "They'll kill you. You and Gambit."  
  
"We can look after ourselves, Chair," Gambit said from where he stood by the door, "You don't have to worry about us."  
  
Trisha tuned on him, her eyes sparking with anger and tears, "It's not you I'm worried about. It's me. And Maranda. And Alex. And Kat. And LeAnna!" her voice broke.  
  
Charles got a gimps of her vision and his hands tightened over Maranda's on his neck, glad she couldn't see. But she got the idea.  
  
Peter ran his hand through his hair, and sighed, "The decision is Alex's." Trish began to protest and he lifted his hand, "For now, we should take LeAnna to Charles's. Alex is headed there anyway."  
  
Charles reached out to Peter. Alexandria was headed to his airfield in a 737, with God knows whom as passengers.  
  
Peter sighed, "Trisha, could you pack for Alex. And, Kat, get some things together for you sister."  
  
"Of course," but it was Sara's voice that answered.  
  
Peter nodded, "We'll stay with Charles until Alex can sort this out."  
  



	9. Chapter 9

Ororo watched as the helicopters set down on the landing pad in front of her. It was an easy landing, she made sure of that. Not so much as a whisper of a breeze stirred around them. It was an awkward job, she was so used to calling the wind, not stilling it.  
  
As soon as the X-Men helicopter set down, the backdoor flew open and the professors chair floated to the ground followed by the professor himself, both supported by Jean's invisible kinetic hand.  
  
Dr. Jones, Trisha and Kat quickly followed, along with a boy of about fifteen Ororo didn't recognize. Jean easily brought out the stretcher behind them, LeAnna's inert figure looking so small.  
  
Ororo just watched, not knowing what else to do. Her job was done, but she couldn't just walk away. And in situations like this, there was nothing you could say. So, she watched, unable to do more than offer a heartsick smile. Not that anyone saw it; not even the professor look at her as he past her on his way into the mansion. It was probably for the better, she'd only make them feel worse.  
  
She turned back to the helicopters. They could stay there the night, there was no rain coming. She paused when the co-pilot's door swung open on the visiting helicopter. A young man of maybe twenty stepped out. He was attractive, his red hair short and styled up. The tails of his sleeveless black coat flapped in the returning natural gentle wind. He nodded at her as he jogged passed, following the rest of the group.  
  
Ororo looked towards the pilot's door, wondering who was flying it. She had heard that they had added two new members to their team, both men, a Cajun and an Aus...tral...ion.  
  
She barely finished the thought. The pilot's door opened and he stepped out. Or rather, unfolded. He must have been six-four. With shoulders as wide as a house. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if he hand to turn sideways to get through doors. He made his way towards her, and she picked her jaw up off the ground.  
  
He gave her a genuine smile as he stopped in front of her. "I here we have you to thank for the soft landing." His smile faded, "Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome," Ororo was impressed at how even her voice sounded.  
  
He stared up into the starry sky, squinting, "We should be alright leaving the birds out for the night. It shouldn't rain."  
  
"It won't," she said, "Not at least for thirty six hours."  
  
"Figured as much," he said, looking back to her, then gestured for her to proceed him towards the house, "After you, Miss Munroe."  
  
"Thank you, Mr..."  
  
He offered his hand "Peter McCalister."  
  
It was warm and strong as it closed over hers. He smiled again and a thrill ran up her spine. She almost blushed.  
  
He held her hand longer than was strictly necessary, letting go reluctantly, "After you."  
  
  
  
Logan watched as Alex tried to make herself comfortable. The co-pilots seat was meant to keep you awake for the trip, not take a nap. She yawned and rolled her head against the top of the seat.  
  
"Yeah know," he said, "You'd be more comfortable in one of the passengers seats."  
  
She sat up and blinked, "No, I'm fine."  
  
"Sure you are," he said, rolling his eyes. He pushed away from the wall, and made his way out of the cockpit, idly wondering where the blankets were, or if they even had any on this retrofit.  
  
They were almost to there destination and all the kids were still asleep. So were the two kidnapers they had surprised just after take-off. He stepped up to the bathroom door and pulled it open. The man on the toilet groaned and turned his face from the light.  
  
_Great_, he thought, and half turned back to the cockpit to call Alex, then thought better of it. What ever she had been doing, she was wiped out. Besides, there was an easier way to deal with it.  
  
Stepping into the stall, Logan pulled the man up by the front of his shirt. He groaned again and managed to drag his eyelids half up. Logan hulled back and hit him squarely on the jaw, letting him fall back against the toilet, out cold.  
  
Logan worked his hand in and out of a fist, smiling to himself. Suddenly the floor tilted beneath his feet. "Shit."  
  
He ran for the cockpit. He found Alex still relaxed in the co-pilot chair, her feet now propped on the very edge of the console.  
  
"What the hell..." Logan said, skidding to a halt.  
  
"Landing," Alex said, around a yawn.  
  
Anchoring himself behind the pilots seat, Logan was surprised how fast the plain lost altitude. His ears popped twice, but it didn't seem to affect Alex. She remained where she was, her arms crossed over her chest, eyes closed. She seemed equally unaffected by the planes sudden impact with the tarmac and the lurching stop that nearly threw Logan over the pilot's seat.  
  
When the plain finely came to a halt, she simply yawned and stretched.  
  
"There is probably somebody waiting for us," she said as she stood.  
  
Logan stood his ground, blocking the doorway. "How do you expect to get out of here?"  
  
"The door?" she said, batting her eyelashes at him.  
  
He glared at her, she just smiled.  
  
"We're a little far off the ground," he growled.  
  
There was a loud clang as something metal hit the out side of the plain.  
  
"That would be the stairs," she said. She reached up and ran her fingers along the side of his hair, before reaching down and tugging lightly on his beard. She chuckled and shook her head as she slip passed him to the door.  
  
Logan reached up and rubbed the skin that she'd pulled. Truth was he could do with a shave, and a haircut wouldn't hurt either.  
  
Turning on his heal, Logan walked up behind Alex as she swung the door open. Almost both entire groups stand at the bottom of the metal stairs. The only ones missing are the professor, the Doctor, and...the youngest...LeAnna.  
  
"Mom," Kat said, her eyes filling with tears.  
  
"What is it?" Alex asked, hurrying down the stairs to meet her.  
  
_Mom?_ Logan shook his head, hadn't Alex said they were sisters? Or had he just assumed.  
  
"It's LeAnna," Kat choked out.  
  
"What happened?" Alex sounded like she'd been punched.  
  
Logan's first instinct was to reach out and hold her, protect her from the pain.  
  
"She was in the mind of an animal when it was killed," Trish replied from the bottom of the stairs, "She's withdrawn in on herself."  
  
"Oh, God," Alex said, wrapping her arms around Kat. After a moment, Alex stepped back and all but bolted down the rest of the stairs, Kat right behind her. Neither of them bothered to open the doors of the jeep sitting on the side of the road leading away from the airstrip.  
  
Logan barely registered the rest of the group filling past him into the plain as he watched the taillights of the Jeep disappear down the road.  
  
"Alex's done wonders with that one."  
  
Logan looked over to see Jean standing beside him. He lifted an eyebrow.  
  
"Kat's mother died in childbirth," she said.  
  
Logan did some quick re-thinking. That would make Alex Kat's stepmother, and LeAnna her half sister. That would explain the difference in the look of the girls, and the similarity between LeAnna and Alex.  
  
Jean continued, "And her father was...abusive."  
  
Logan didn't like the sound of that pause. "Abusive?"  
  
The haunted look in Jean's eyes told Logan that they weren't talking about the garden-variety-knock-'em-around abuse, though even that was inexcusable, but something darker, more insidious. _Sexual abuse,_ Logan had the sudden _need_ to disembowel someone he'd never met.  
  
"Jean," Scott said, coming up behind them. Jean nodded and slipped past him. Logan would have sworn that Scott threw him a dirty look before following Jean back into the plain, but it was hard to tell through the visor.  
  
_You got nothing to worry about boy-o,_ Logan thought, turning to look back down the dark road, _Not anymore._  
  
  
  
"It's my fault," Kat said, her words barely audible over the wind rushing through the Jeep.  
  
"How'd ya figure that?" Alex asked, glancing at her quickly before returning her eyes to the road.  
  
"I'm in charge of security-"  
  
"You've turned the house in to a veritable Fort Nox," Alex cut in, "You can't control what your sister does with her mind."  
  
"She was in the kitchen," Kat said tonelessly, staring blindly out the windshield, "They blew out the window with explosive arrow heads from across the road."  
  
Alex sucked in a deep breath. Whoever had hit them had done their homework. By staying off the property, they had avoided Sarah's sensors. And all the windows were bulletproof.  
  
"I should have gotten stronger windows," Kat said.  
  
"Are their commercially available windows stronger than the ones we have?" Kat's silence said no. "Look, kido, it's a little early to be indulging in self-blame. Can we get a better idea of what exactly happened before you start hogging all the blame for yourself?"  
  
"Fine," Kat said in a belligerent tone that was music to Alex's ears, "But when all this is over I'm taking my fair share."  
  
"Get in line," Alex said with a laugh.  
  
"Yeah, after you, Uncle X, Maranda, Peter and Trish," Kat said sarcastically, counting the people off on her fingers.  
  
Alex winced, "Everyone's blaming themselves then?"  
  
"Yeah," Kat said, "Even Sarah. Do you have any idea how hard it is dealing with a depressed computer?"  
  
Alex couldn't help laughing, "Anything like dealing with a depressed teenager?"  
  
Kat rolled her eyes.  
  
All of Alex's fear and panic returned as she turned the corner into the schools parking lot. Luckily, the halls were all but deserted, and those few students that were up and about stayed well out of her way as she ran for LeAnna's room.  
  
The room was dark. Alex barely saw Maranda sitting in the chair by the head of LeAnna's bed.  
  
Alex made her way to her daughter. She lightly brushed the hair off LeAnna's forehead. In the distance, she heard Maranda and Kat saying that they should go back to the plain to help out. Alex must have made some positive response, because they left.  
  
Slumping down in the chair Maranda had just left, Alex took LeAnna's hand. She leaned over, "Sweetheart! Oh, Sweetheart, don't leave me. Please. Please, I love you. You're the world to me."  
  
  
  
Alex opened her eyes to a world where color blurred. The scenery around her looked like a van Gogh painting, while she remained solid. But she was not afraid. Actually she was the most relaxed she'd been for a very long time.  
  
She was sitting under a weeping willow tree, the dappled sun falling through the branches, highlighting the navy blanket she was sitting on, and the velvet grass around it. A baby lay on her back beside Alex, giggling up at the leaves swaying above her head. It was LeAnna when she was four months old. Alex reached out and ran a finger along the baby's soft, chubby cheek.  
  
"Watch me, Mommy. Watch me." Alex looked up to see LeAnna at four standing just outside of the willow's branches. Seeing that she had gotten her mother's attention, the child did a pretty good imitation of a cartwheel. Alex laughed and clapped.  
  
A giggle from beside her, made Alex turn. There was a swing set off to her left, and another young version of LeAnna was being pushed on a swing by a LeAnna of twelve.  
  
A gate opened, and a man walked in. He was the only person that was not concrete. His face was shadowed, but with light instead of dark.  
  
"Daddy!" the girl on the swing said, and jumped off the swing right into his arms. He hugged her and whirled her around before putting her on the ground. He moved around to all of the girls, whispering words of encouragement and praise, and sharing laughter.  
  
After picking up the baby and tossing her over is head a couple of times, eliciting a riot of giggles, he lay down with his head in Alex's lap and the baby yawning on his chest. He reached up and gently pulled Alex's head down for a kiss.  
  
And in that instant, Alex knew that her world was perfect. 


	10. Chapter 10

"Mom." Kat's voice sounded far away but it was enough to snap Alex out of her dream.  
  
Alex sat up slowly. She glanced at LeAnna, she hadn't moved.  
  
"You need to get some sleep, Mom."  
  
"I have been sleeping," Alex said, sitting up.  
  
Kat crossed her arms and shook her head, "No, real sleep."  
  
"But-"  
  
"No 'buts'," Kat interrupted her.  
  
Alex stretched her arms above her head before looking at her daughter, "You're getting awfully pushy."  
  
"I learned from the best," she said standing up.  
  
"Yeah," Alex said, "Maranda."  
  
Kat held out her hand to help her mom up, "Not hardly.  
  
"Look," Kat continued when Alex was on her feet, "I need sleep to, and, believe it or not, I'm not going to sleep with you sitting here."  
  
"Okay, okay, okay," Alex said raising her hands in defeat, "But remember, my rooms right across the hall if you need me."  
  
"Yes, Mother," Kat said dutifully.  
  
"And I want to know exactly when she wakes up."  
  
"Yes, Mother."  
  
"Or if anything changes."  
  
"Yes, Mother."  
  
"And remember-"  
  
"Mom!" Kat interrupted, "Go to bed."  
  
Alex smiled and gave her daughter a quick hug. Leaning over LeAnna, she brushed a quick kiss over her forehead before making leaving the room.  
  
She made her way quickly across the hall, gratefully shutting the door to her own room. Leaning against it, she made a quick note that someone had left a bag of her things on the floor by the bed. At this point, she doubted she'd have the energy to change her clothes, but it was a nice thought anyway.  
  
Suddenly the door to her bathroom opened, and Logan walked out, rubbing a towel over his wet hair. He stopped mid-stroke when he looked up and saw her standing there. After a moment of looking as shocked as she felt, a grin of masculine satisfaction spread across his face, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"  
  
Alex's mouth was too dry to say anything. As mouthwatering as he was in just his boxers, as sexy as he had looked in dress pants and a silk shirt, as powerful as he had looked in molded leather, there was something about him in low-slung sweatpants, no shirt, and wet hair, that left her breathless. Maybe it had something to do with the thought of him in the shower...  
  
Desperately trying to pull herself together, she said the first thing that popped into her mind.  
  
  
  
"Why are you in my room?"  
  
Logan looked at Alex, bemused. "I hate to till you this, Lady, but _you_ are in _my_ room.  
  
Alex blinked once, then turned around, and opened the door. Logan's brows knitted together, that was too easy.  
  
A moment later, Jean appeared in the doorway.  
  
"Why is he in my room?" Alex asked, hooking a thumb over her shoulder a Logan.  
  
"I'm sorry," Jean apologized, "When he was here last, we put him in this room."  
  
"Okay," Alex said, sounding overly calm, "Now put him in a different room."  
  
"I can't" Jean said. Alex went absolutely still. Logan almost chuckled.  
  
"Why not?" Alex asked very slowly. It almost sounded like she was afraid of the answer.  
  
"There are no more rooms."  
  
Alex made no response, so Jean continued, "All the rooms have been turned into dorms. With over a hundred new kids we're packed in pretty tight."  
  
"Maranda?" Alex asked.  
  
"Staying with Trisha," Jean replied, then guessing Alex's next question, "And Peter and Gambit are in a room together. And Ororo's room has been turned into a dorm. I really am sorry Alex, but there isn't so much as a cot to spare."  
  
With that, Jean slipped silently out of the room, closing the door behind her.  
  
Alex stood there unmoving; her head down, her shoulders slumped. Shaking his head, Logan came up behind her and pulled a pillow from the bed. After tossing it on the floor, he went to the closet and pulled out an extra blanket. He could feel her eyes on him as he shook out the blanked and knelt to spread it out into a makeshift bed.  
  
"What do you think you are doing?"  
  
Logan looked up at her, "Getting ready for bed?"  
  
She blinked at him.  
  
He shrugged, "I would sleep in the tub, but it's a bit small, and a little bit wet at the moment."  
  
"So you're going to sleep on the floor?"  
  
Logan looked down at the plush carpeting, then back up at Alex, "I've slept on harder beds."  
  
"You can't-"  
  
"Look," he said standing up, "When was the last time you got some sleep?"  
  
"About five minutes ago."  
  
Logan snorted, "Three hours in a chair doesn't count. When was the last time you got any _real_ sleep?"  
  
She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. It looked like she was trying to come up with the tenth digit of pi.  
  
"Too long," he answered for her, "Get some sleep."  
  
Alex opened her eyes reluctantly. She leaned over the pillow and tossed it back on the bed. Before Logan could ask what the hell she was doing, she answered, "I won't get any sleep knowing you're on the floor. I'm assuming you can stay on your side of the bed?"  
  
Logan sincerely doubted her comment about not being able to sleep, she looked tired enough to fall asleep before her head hit the pillow. She walked around him, moving to the other side of the bed.  
  
"Shouldn't you change?" he asked as she pulled down the covers, "Leather isn't the most comfortable thing to sleep in."  
  
She looked down at herself then back up at him, "And you would know this from personal experience?"  
  
Logan didn't respond. She sighed and closed her eyes. As Logan watched, her sleeves disappeared, merging into the skin of her arms. He blinked and realized that the rest of her suet had turned into a fine fur.  
  
"What, not much better?" Alex asked, and Logan realized he was staring.  
  
She picked up her bag and walked into the bathroom. Logan tried to breathe and deal with the fact that since she had gone to change for the rescue she had technically been naked. It would definitely explain why he hadn't smelt any leather around her.  
  
A moment later, the bathroom door opened and any progress Logan had made to thinking rationally vanished. She stood there in a long, dark green chemise that brought out more than the red of her hair. The low neck line held up by spaghetti straps made his mouth water. Almost as much as the slits up both sides.  
  
"Better?" she asked as she made her way towards him.  
  
Logan barely made out what she said, and just managed to get out a guttural response, "Not really."  
  
She smiled and slid into the bed, her back to him. The knowledge that the back was cut lower than the front didn't help Logan out at all.  
  
He balled his hands into fists. He decided it was best if he found somewhere else to sleep. Maybe the sitting room. Or one of the cars in the garage.  
  
"Alex," he said.  
  
She didn't respond. It took him a moment to realize why. She was fast asleep.  
  
  
  
Logan's muttering woke Alex up. Agitated and sweating, he was lurching spasmodically, gripped in the clutches of a dream. The arm close to her was thrown over his eyes, he sounded like he was being tortured.  
  
She rolled towards him, getting close enough to make using his wicked claws awkward. Her hand in his chest, she leaned over him.  
  
"Michael, Michael," she whispered, "I'm here. It's all right. Your safe."  
  
Alex wasn't sure if it was her presence, her voice, or what she said, but he settled down almost immediately.  
  
She stayed there for a moment. Even with the halfhearted attempt at a beard, he looked good. Strong. With a sad smile, she shifted to roll away.  
  
Lightening quick, his far hand caught her wrist, gently but firmly trapping her hand to his chest. He let out a deep breath, "Red."  
  
Alex bit back a curse. She could pull away, but that could make him agitated again. And Alex didn't want to have to deal with his claws. She wasn't left with a hell of a lot of options.  
  
Giving up, she put her head down on his shoulder and made herself comfortable. It took depressingly little effort. Logan sighed as she settled herself. He stretched the arm closest to her across the pillows and released her wrist to rest his hand on her hip.  
  
The remaining tension left Logan, and Alex's last clear thought was that she should roll away. But she just didn't seem to have the energy.  
  



	11. Chapter 11

The world around Logan was bright and crisp. The towering evergreens of the temperate rainforest surrounded the natural clearing at the edge of the cliff. He could hear the surf pounding the rocks below, saw the blue expanse beyond. Standing near the edge was a woman.  
  
He walked up behind her, pressing a light kiss on her neck, resting his hands on her very pregnant belly.  
  
_Soon now,_ he thought. The weight had dropped as the baby moved into position. _Their baby._  
  
She leaned back into him and Logan was at peace.  
  
A noise behind him shattered his calm. She didn't seem to notice. Looking around, he saw nothing. He brushed a kiss across her temple before going to investigate.  
  
He headed towards the house, set back in the protective arms of the trees. He didn't make it. Men in black came out of nowhere, grabbing him. He fought, desperate to get back to the woman. To protect her. To hold her.  
  
He broke free, running towards her. As if sensing him coming, she turned towards him. No longer pregnant, she held a perfect baby in her arms, wrapped in a pink blanket.  
  
He was grabbed from behind again, and this time he couldn't get away. Tears ran down Logan's face, a howl of rage filled his throat.  
  
  
  
Logan sat up in bed, the word 'Red' on his lips.  
  
He could hear the water running in the shower, glad that Alex was safely away from him. Taking a deep breath, he tried to relax. It didn't work. Every muscle in his body hummed. He wanted to go find someone to rip apart. The way he always did after waking from one of his dreams. And, as usual, the dream had already faded into nothingness. Leaving him drained, both physically and mentally. But this time he was left with 'Red'.  
  
Logan laid back against his pillow. The warm smell of Alex chased the anxiety of the dream away. He could get used to having her around, if he could make sure he didn't kill her.  
  
Logan smiled, remembering waking up in the middle of the night. He hadn't been in the grip of a nightmare, for the first time in a long time, but had woken up slowly, comfortably. He had found Alex curled to his side. It felt so natural to have her there, warm and soft.  
  
The shower turned off. Swinging his legs off the bed, Logan got up and quickly exchanged his sweatpants for jeans. He was pulling on his shirt when Alex walked back into the room.  
  
Dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, her damp hair falling around her face in gentle waves, she took his breath away. She moved past him and tossed her bag back in the closet.  
  
"Sleep well?" he asked, moving up in front of her. Color spread across her high cheekbones before she met his gaze.  
  
"Yes," Alex said, her eyes daring him to challenge her. But Logan didn't want a fight, he wanted...  
  
He bent his head slowly, giving her plenty of time to avoid his kiss. She didn't move, her eyes locked with his till they slid closed at the last second.  
  
Her lips were warm and responsive, her body tipped itself into him. Logan's hand tangled itself in her wet hair, stirring up the sweet smell of her shampoo.  
  
The knock on the door was an unwanted intrusion. Alex froze but did not pull back. Logan rested his forehead on Alex's, fighting to control his breathing. One hand was still tangled in her hair, the other rested on the small of her back, the heat of her skin warm against his palm. Her own hands rested on his back under his shirt.  
  
Alex pulled away from him slowly and walked to the door, tucking her t-shirt back into her jeans. Logan started to button up his shirt as Alex opened the door to Jean. Logan smiled over at her, knowing that Jean could pick up on the tension in the room as easy as he could smell it.  
  
Jean looked back to Alex, trying to hide the question in her eyes, "I think I have a way to get to LeAnna."  
  
  
  
Alex sat at the head of LeAnna's bed, her daughter's head in her lap, Syrus curled up, listless, at her feet. Charles reached out and placed his hand over hers. He sat in his chair beside the bed, preparing once again to make contact with LeAnna, this time to bring Alex with him. Maranda stood behind him, in case this little experiment required medical attention. Jean was at the end of the bed, to lend what telepathic help she could. Kat was sitting on her own bed, her arms wrapped around her legs, her chin resting on her knees.  
  
Logan stood by the door. He had stood behind Alex as Jean had explained her idea, lending her much needed support. He had followed them into LeAnna's room with out so much as a word, to lean against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as if to dare anyone to tell him to leave. Alex could see beyond the relaxed pose, to the worry that lay beneath. It was strange, he had only met LeAnna briefly, but he seemed to be as invested in this as any of the others in the room.  
  
"Ready?" Charles asked. Alex tuned her eyes from Logan and nodded at her uncle.  
  
The world began to dim around her and she instinctively closed her eyes. She only opened them again when Charles gently called her name. She found her self in her kitchen, Charles standing beside her, holding her hand. He smiled down at her.  
  
She felt the icy chill of the wind through the window even before saw the gaping hole and glass shattered on the floor. LeAnna lay curled on her side, thankfully away from the glass. Charles stepped forward, looking concerned, "Syrus?"  
  
Alex looked around, not seeing the dog anywhere. She moved quickly to her daughter, pulling her into her lap.  
  
"Mom?" LeAnna said, looking up at Alex. Her eyes were red from crying, her cheeks streaked with tears. As Alex watched, LeAnna's open, pleading face closed up. LeAnna turned away from her, "Go away."  
  
Alex felt everything start to fade around her.  
  
"No," Her voice was strong, her Mother voice. Instantly, the world clarified. "I'm not going away."  
  
She held LeAnna as the girl shook with tears, "Shhh, it'll be alright."  
  
"No, it won't," she said pulling away violently, "I...I killed it! I killed a defenseless little bird."  
  
"I know," Alex said, letting her have her space, "And that pain is something you'll have to live with for the rest of your life. It'll get better, but it will never go away."  
  
LeAnna turned an accusing glare at Alex, "How would you know?"  
  
"I can still remember the faces of every person I've killed," Alex fought to keep her face calm, "You learn to live with the pain, you grow from it."  
  
She reached out and touched her daughter's shocked face, "You'll be more careful in the future, more aware. But you can't stop living. That won't bring the robin back."  
  
  
  
Alex opened her eyes to her daughters' bedroom to see LeAnna smiling up at her, tears pooling in her eyes. She returned the watery smile with one of her own, reaching down to give her a quick hug.  
  
Syrus nearly vibrated up the bed. As soon as Alex let her go, LeAnna wrapped her arms around the dog's neck, burying her face in his fir. The large dog's tail thumped a happy rhythm on the bed.  
  
LeAnna let of Syrus and swung her legs off the bed. She exchanged a quick smile with Charles, before Kat caught her up in a tight bare hug.  
  
"Damn, girl," Kat said after finally pulling back to smile down at her sister, "You need a shower!"  
  
Everyone in the room laughed, even Logan. The girls moved off, quickly surrounded by Maranda and Jean, both surreptitiously giving LeAnna a quick once over. Syrus wove himself around LeAnna's feet, doing a pretty good impersonation of a giant cat.  
  
Alex scooted over to the edge of the bed to sit beside Charles.  
  
"That's quite the secret you're keeping," he said, his voice low, his eyes still on the girls.  
  
"I'm not the only one with secrets," Alex matched his tone and gaze. They watch as Jean reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. "She's going to find out eventually on her own, you know. It might be better coming from you."  
  
"I know," he said, "But it never seems to be the right time."  
  
Alex laughed, "It never is."  
  
"The longer you wait the harder it becomes."  
  
"Maybe we should take some of our own advice."  
  
For the first time in the conversation, they looked at each other, both wearing the same sad smile. Both knew they wouldn't. 


End file.
